You ever notice what a mixed bag of economic news we receive these days?  Here is one that caught my eye from CNNMoney.com (my editing):

The private sector gained 9,000 jobs in July, primarily among small businesses and the service sector, according to a report payroll manager ADP released Wednesday.

A consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected a loss of 60,000 non-farm jobs.

Can you imagine if the “consensus of economists” bet on football games?  They would be making their predictions from the poor house.

Nonetheless, I heard a very interesting talk from John Sumser last week in which he discussed that national employment statistics are grossly overrated (my term).  His thesis is that economies are regional, even local (look for the “Mega-Region slide).  Weakness in one area (e.g. Detroit) is far different than growth in another area (e.g. Las Vegas).  Trying to combine these two into a national number is a statistic for national newspapers to use, but it truly does not have any application locally.

I couldn’t agree more.

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